Scandalous (31 page)

As he had told her tonight— and he shouldn't have, he knew better, knew that people who played with fire quite often ended up getting burned— she had somehow, in his eyes, grown more lovely than any woman of his acquaintance. Her slim shape, her pale skin and cool gray eyes appealed to him in a way the lusher charms of the women he usually bedded no longer did. Belinda was a case in point: he hadn't visited her bed in weeks. He doubted that he ever would again, although she was clearly eager that he should. He hadn't set up another mistress either, although he could not remember ever before in his adult life having gone so long without a woman.

But the only woman he wanted he couldn't, in honor, have.

What was it about Gabriella? he wondered moodily, swallowing the remaining brandy in his glass at a gulp. Was it the way she had of looking at him sometimes like he was a street sweeper and she was the bloody queen? Or was it the quickness of her tongue, or the telltale way she blushed, or the sparkle in her eyes when she laughed?

Or was it her courage? She had more than any man he had ever met. Fate had handed her a raw deal, and she had stood up and spit in its eye and dared it to try to defeat her. She had stood up to him, too, from the beginning, when he'd done his best to frighten her out of her wits. She was brave enough to come to London when any other woman would have gone into mourning for her poor dead brother in Yorkshire and waited for someone else to decide her future. She was brave enough to contemplate marriage with a man she knew damned well would make her miserable, because she saw it as the best way to obtain security for herself and her sisters. She was brave enough to hold her head high and dance in defiance of the infirmity of her leg.

He'd seen heroes in Wellington's army who weren't half as brave as that.

When he had realized that his taste didn't run to sweet young things like Claire, he had discovered, too, what it did run to: the intelligence and gallantry and passion that was Gabriella.

He wanted her with an urgency that, lately, seemed ever present. And yet, he wanted to protect her, too. Earlier tonight, when he had realized that he had provoked a miniscandal by kissing her hand at the end of their dance— and it was getting harder and harder to remember that he was supposed to be her brother— he had subsequently partnered half a dozen females he had no desire to stand up with just to keep from adding fuel to the fire by allowing the gossips to say, too, that she was the only woman he danced with.

Whatever happened, he didn't want her to be hurt. Not by him, or anyone else.

And he wasn't about to let her marry Jamison. He couldn't stay with her, but he could save her from that. And he meant to do what he could to make her, and Claire and Beth, safe before he had to go.

His cigar had burned down to a nub, he noticed at a glance. And the brandy bottle was very close to empty as well. Getting rather unsteadily to his feet, he stubbed out what was left of the cigar, took one last swallow of brandy, and began to unbutton his waistcoat.

He would go to bed. If sleep did not come to him now, when he was so drunk the bed looked like he was seeing it through the small end of a telescope, it never would.

His waistcoat was off, and he was working his way down the buttons of his shirt, his movements slow and careful because drink had rendered his fingers clumsy, when he heard something from the apartment next door.

His head came up, and his hands stilled. Frowning, he glanced toward the adjoining door.

At that moment Gabriella screamed.

33

Trent was there, in the darkness with her, striking her with his cane, meaning to… to…

Gabby screamed, and screamed again. Shatteringly. Heartbreakingly.

"Gabriella! Gabriella, wake up, for God's sake!"

Strong hands closed over her upper arms, shaking her, rousing her from the nightmare that held her in thrall. Her eyes blinked open, and for a moment, still fighting free of the terror, she cringed as she stared groggily up at an indistinct dark shape looming above her. Her heart pounded. Her skin crawled. It was a man's shape, rendered black and featureless by the faint orange glow of the dying fire. A man's hands, wrapped around her arms. A man's breath, brandy-soaked, warm on her face.

In that next split second she recognized him, would have recognized him, she thought, in the darkest fissure in the deepest corner of hell. Her own personal devil, come to steal her soul.

"Oh, it's you," she breathed on a shuddering sigh of relief, and her tense muscles went limp. Perversely, now that the dream was gone, she began, in a bone-deep reaction that she couldn't control, to shake.

"Yes, it's me," he said. "Don't worry, Gabriella, I have you safe."

His voice was warm, and deep, and soothing. It, and his presence, and even the smell of brandy, which she quite liked, and cigars, which she didn't, made her realize that there was truly nothing to fear. She took a deep breath, and then another, trying to stop the tremors that racked her limbs. But they sprang from some place deep in her subconscious, apparently, because with the best will in the world she couldn't get them to stop.

"You're shivering."

"I know. I can't seem to help it." She took another deep breath. She was lying on her back now with her head on her pillow, the covers neatly tucked around her waist, shaking so badly that her teeth chattered. Clenching her fists, she willed the tremors to stop. They did not.

"You're not cold?" His voice was gentle.

Gabby shook her head. Trent's face loomed in her mind….

"Bad dream?"

She shuddered. "Hold me," she whispered, shamed at her own need.

"Gabriella." His response was swift. The covers shifted, and then he was sliding into bed with her, stretching his length beside her, pulling her into strong arms. By the time they were settled her head rested on his chest and his arms were wrapped around her waist. She shifted slightly so that she could look up at him, one hand twining in the soft linen of his shirt. His eyes gleamed at her through the darkness. She could make out his features now, just barely. He was frowning, so that his brows nearly met over his nose and his mouth— that beautiful mouth— was grave.

"You screamed," he said.

"Did I?"

"Like a banshee."

She shuddered again, remembering, and his arms tightened even more.

"I'm so glad you heard me." All of her usual defenses were down. The dream had unsettled her so that all she could do was cling to him as the only safe port in a terrifyingly rough sea. Closing her eyes, she snuggled closer yet. His solid warmth attracted her like a magnet. In the aftermath of the dream she felt cold, so cold, and hideously vulnerable. It was as if she were a little girl again, alone and afraid, with no one to protect her….

The hand that had been gripping his shirt loosened, smoothed the cloth she had wrinkled, and discovered that his shirt was unbuttoned almost to the waist. Her fingers just brushed the mat of hair thus exposed. Drawn by the heat of his bare skin, intrigued by the tensile strength of his wide chest, she let her hand rest in the fur. Her fingers moved idly among the crisp whorls.

He said nothing, but lay very still. Something brushed the top of her head, and she wondered vaguely if it could be his lips. Opening her eyes, she saw that her hand looked very white and slender lying atop the thicket of black hair. She could feel the long, hard length of him through the thin lawn of her nightdress, and registered that he was still fully dressed, in breeches and a shirt, and stockings. Her own feet were bare, and she rubbed her toes along his silk-clad calves, loving the hard warmth of him, greedy to make contact with him in any way she could.

"I should perhaps warn you that I am a trifle drunk." The words were said carefully, and his hand came up to still her fingers, which were playing almost of their own volition with his chest hair.

Gabby glanced up at him. "Umm. You smell like a brewery."

"And you smell like— vanilla." A slight smile curved his lips. His eyes were mere slits now, gleaming in the firelight as he looked down at her. His hand lay atop hers, not permitting it to move but not lifting it away from his chest.

"It's the soap I use. I had a bath before I came to bed."

He said nothing in response to that. Beneath her palm, she could feel, very faintly, the steady beat of his heart. Wrapped so closely in his arms, besides the scent of brandy and cigars, she could smell the barest hint of leather and the faint, musky aroma that she had learned was man. Her shivers were lessening, eased by some combination of the heat of his body and the comfort of his presence. Her breasts were pressed flat against his side; one of his hipbones nudged her stomach. Her cold toes wedged between his silk-clad calf and the mattress, seeking heat.

Everywhere they touched, her skin tingled.

"Tell me about your nightmare." His voice was low, slightly husky, and commanding for all that.

She took a deep breath, distracted from her growing awareness of her body's response to his, and instinctively curled her fingers around the hair she touched; her nails lightly scored the surface of his chest. He winced, and, realizing that she was hurting him, she eased her grip with an apologetic caress.

"Gabriella."

She shook her head, wanting the nightmare simply to slip away as it had so many times before, unwilling to extend its horror by putting it into words.

"Was it by any chance about Trent?"

She quivered, and glanced up at him, wide-eyed. His arms tightened around her, pulling her so close against him that she could feel the hard outline of his hip bone pressing into her skin.

"How did you— what makes you think that?"

His hand stroked the back of her head, found her braid, and slid down its length before toying with the end, which was bound with a scrap of blue ribbon.

"Servants are an unending source of information. When I saw how Trent terrified you, I had Barnet ask around. Trent was in some way responsible for your damaged leg, wasn't he?"

Gabby's breath caught on a little gasp. Her fingers clutched his chest hair again, but this time he didn't seem to notice. His hand was at the base of her spine now, spread flat against the first gentle flare of her bottom, pressing her close.

"Tell me." There was no doubt, this time, that it was a command.

For a moment Gabby hesitated. She couldn't speak of what had happened, had never been able to speak of it. Not to anyone, not her sisters or Twindle or Jem. All these years she had kept the events of that night bottled up inside— and they had visited her in the form of nightmares. Over the years, though, the nightmares had become less frequent, and finally had nearly ceased altogether. The one tonight was the first she had had since her father's death. It had been brought on, no doubt, by her hair-raising encounter with Trent.

Then she realized: here was the one person she could tell who wouldn't be frightened by the knowledge or somehow put in harm's way by it. Who was neither a servant nor a woman, and who was, moreover, only a visitor to their insular little world where wealth and nobility conveyed on one all the powers of a medieval king.

She could share her burden with him with really no more consequence than talking to herself.

"He— I— my father— I was twelve years old," she began haltingly, loosing her grip on his chest hair and smoothing her fingertips over the abused patch. She did not glance up at him, but kept her gaze on her hand. The short black hairs curled around her fingers…. "My father had— house parties. He was confined to a Bath chair in his later years, you know, so rarely left Hawthorne Hall. His friends came to him. They were a raffish group: mostly noblemen and their mistresses. They drank, and gambled, and— and, well, I'm sure I don't need to tell you what else went on."

"I can guess." His voice was dry.

"Yes, well, one night my father apparently ran low on funds. He invariably gambled away every pound of income the estate brought in; I am sure, if the property hadn't been entailed, he would have lost that, too. It was past four in the morning when a servant came to summon me from my bed. My father desired to see me most urgently, he said. I was not even to take time to dress. Accordingly, I rushed to his side in my nightgown and wrapper, expecting to find him at, perhaps, death's door. He was in his rooms on the second floor: by that time he rarely went downstairs anymore. There I discovered nothing more dire than my father and Trent playing cards. It was a few minutes before I realized that
I
was the wager on the table."

He made an inarticulate sound, and his arms tightened around her. She took a deep breath and went on.

"My father had lost a great deal, it seemed. The pile of cash and vouchers in front of Trent was high. After a few minutes in which they both ignored me, my father beckoned me over and pulled me around to face Trent. Will she do, he asked. I was too young to really understand what was going on, but I knew enough to be embarrassed by the way Trent was looking at me. I was frightened of him, a little, but at that point my father frightened me more. So I just stood there as Trent nodded. My father wrote something on a piece of paper, said
twenty thousand pounds against one virgin girl child
in a gloating kind of way, and pushed the note across the table to Trent. They played, and my father lost. Then he went away. The wheels of his Bath chair squeaked as he left." Gabby's eyes closed. It was all she could do to keep her voice from shaking. "I can still hear the click as he turned the key from the outside. I was locked in, alone, with Trent."

He made a sound under his breath. Gabby paused, her fingers closing over his chest hair again, suddenly unable to go on. She could hear his heart beating strongly beneath her ear. It was all she could do just to breathe.

34

"The bastard tried to rape you." It wasn't a question. His voice was harsh. Gabby could feel his hands ball into fists against her back, scrunching the thin lawn of her nightdress within them.

"He told me to take off my clothes." Gabby's voice was ragged. "He seemed to think that I would obey. When I wouldn't, he grabbed me. I got away, but he hit me with his cane— the same cane he carries now— as I was trying to get out the door, and knocked me down. Then he hit me— again, and again. I managed to get away a second time, and get on my feet. When he came after me again, I— jumped out the window. It was a long way to the ground. I fell— I remember it was a beautiful, starry night, and warm for September, and for a moment I almost felt like I was flying— and landed on the terrace, which is made of stone. The fall knocked me out, and broke my leg. I— when I came to I was in terrible pain, and still so frightened. Almost too frightened to call for help, but finally I did. Nobody came until it was light. Then Claire saw me lying on the ground from the nursery window, and came running down."